


Marriage Is This Grand Madness

by archea2



Category: Leverage, White Collar
Genre: Crossover, Elizabeth-centric, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Humor, Not So Simple Wedding, Simple Wedding, Wedding Planning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25573453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archea2/pseuds/archea2
Summary: Elizabeth agrees to do Mozzie one small solid. The results are... solidly unexpected.(Takes place after both show finales, yet before Mozzie hands Peter that final clue. Eliot's status within the Leverage trio is left to the reader's appreciation.)
Relationships: Alec Hardison & Parker & Eliot Spencer, Alec Hardison/Parker, Elizabeth Burke & Mozzie (White Collar), Elizabeth Burke/Peter Burke
Comments: 8
Kudos: 66
Collections: Just Married Exchange 2020





	Marriage Is This Grand Madness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Karios](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karios/gifts).



> Dear Karios,
> 
> I took advantage of your kind offer in having El plan for one of my OTPs, though it seems that our tastes overlap quite a bit. So here's hoping this crossover will please you!

_Marriage is this grand madness, and I think if people knew that, they would perhaps take it more seriously._

_\- Bono_

New York in August is a hot take in a dry country. Whitestone glaring, brownstone baking, the yellow all but dripping off taxicabs, road markings, McDonald’s signs, the very warblers in Central Park. Neal Burke doesn’t mind too much: a child of a sunny persuasion, Neal is quite content to get extra bath time with his favourite toy, a purple guppy answering to the name of Princess Missus Sam. For Elizabeth Burke, mother, spouse, planner and woman extraordinaire (if she says so herself), it’s a drab time. Event-wise, August is pretty much a wintry season. Yet here she is, stuck in a city where crime still flourishes like the green bay tree while her own garden variety customers are summering in Nantucket or Oahu.

“Aaaah, Oahu!” Mozzie chants longingly. “Land of sea-turtles and organic coffee. Organic _iced_ coffee! ”

“Will chilled Cabernet do instead?”

She watches his face fall, no, plummet at the name. Damn. It’s Tuesday, and she can never remember if that’s a tannin or an acidity day in Mozzie’s intricate scheduling. Quickly she adds, “Or a nice cool Pomerol?” For Elizabet Burke learnt long ago that true friends come always prepared.

Mozzie’s face rebounds into glee, and it’s a matter of minutes before they are clinking glasses. The clink lures a damp-haired Neal onto Mozzie’s lap; Elizabeth produces raisin water. All is well in the world for about five minutes, until he peers at her and shakes his head.

“Something is wrong with you.”

“Mozzie!”

“Spoken with stern, but sterling devotion.” And the Pomerol sits untasted. “Peter trouble?”

“No, Peter’s doing -” _Just fine_ would be stretching it. It’s been a year, but she can see how Peter is still struggling out of the deep end that was Neal Caffrey’s death. Sometimes he finds his breast stroke again, for days on, and then comes a day when he’s plodding, Neal’s death an iron ring on _his_ legs, and all she can do is tighten her arms around him and not let him sink. 

Still, on the whole… “He’s doing okay.”

Mozzie muses over a sip. “Not Peter, then. The job?”

“Oh, there’s not much of it in summer. I’d love for us to travel a bit, but…” 

She doesn’t have to spell it out - Mozzie has an eye for the very realm he forsook. Home. Her flat, a fresh and watered sanctuary for Peter to reach in the evenings; her son, an anchor that limits and expands her in ways she’d never pictured for herself before. And, of course, Peter. El’s choice. Its price a lightweight, but one that’s a bit chafing right now.

She and Mozzie look at each other in love and shrewdness. 

“You, my friend, are bored.”

“That I am.”

“Good. Then I have no compunction in making a request of you. Can you arrange a wedding for me?” At Elizabeth’s O-shaped response he chuckles, a cluck of a noise that kindles an delighted warble from Neal. “No, no! A bachelor’s life for me. No, I’m asking on behalf of a friend - close friend - my best friend, really.”

Elizabeth lassoes back her _what?_ , though not her stare of disbelief. 

“Neal was my brother,” Mozzie says quietly, and El blushes half for herself. Of course. Neal and Mozzie, of one blood and running together (until). Friends and family are kept distinct in toasts, and Mozzie is one to compartmentalize when it comes to his intricate, multilayered social life. Unless this is Mozzie moving on. It’s been a year, El tells herself. Not everyone can have a child and name him after one’s husband’s tragically dead protégé, a step that had El’s father shake his head and set up a glaring college- _and_ -therapy fund for his grandkid. 

“Of course” (on a contrite note). “But will your friend, uh, agree to an official planner?”

“Well, it would have to be semi-hush-hush,” Mozzie says airily. 

“Hush nuptials.” Elizabeth sucks in her lower lip, pondering. “Moz, are these friends of yours...”

Delicacy gets the better of semantics.

“Safe? No. Sane? Barely. But they’re good. They’re good people, El, working on the behalf of the little people - sometimes _à la lettre_. When I met Hardison five years ago, I was forging a Franklin stamp to pocket, well, the larger Franklins. He was forging an 18th century book to free a child held in custody. ” A beat. “And they’re orphans, both of them. Like me. So that’s crowd management taken care of on D-Day!”

“Oh, Moz.” 

If this isn’t emotional blackmail... But how can she refuse him? Elizabeth goes to galas, openings, coffee socials, she has friends, plural; calls Sara once a month in London for old times’ sake, and meets up with Diana and Theo for play dates. But that’s when she listens. You don’t put Burke Premier Events on top of the charts unless you’re ready and willing to be nine parts ear to one part strongarm. Mozzie, though? _Blossoms_ when she talks. And knows to keep silent whenever the day got to Elizabeth's last nerve, and she just craves his wine, his fondness, and for a pink winter sun to linger above the East River. 

(No, no, no, no, don’t think winter.)

“There’s simply no one else I can ask, and I don’t quite trust them to pull it off on their own. They’re good people, but they’re not worldly people, _stricto sensu_ , and they’re also new to New York. Had to find a new stomping ground after what they did in Portland last summer. Please, Elizabeth. For me? I’ll be officiating.”

His eyes smile unexpectedly, a knowing glint across his glasses. It's a mutual solid, and she knows it. El has been feeling just a little dulled, a little... overly soft-edged with motherhood. She’s not bored with Neal, who, so far, has proved a boon, a handful and a jackpot of fun. But she would relish a challenge. Even one that takes her out in the heat.

“Oh, very well. How do I meet them?”

* * *

Four days later Peter comes home a little green behind the gills, gives her a perspiring kiss, and forswears devilled ham. 

“I thought you’d all pitched in and bought a maxi-cooler?”

“The van disagreed.” Peter, eyes closed, lets a limp hand flop over the sofa arm, wriggling his fingers. “Here, boy, here, here, boy-oh-boy. Who’s a good boyo? Oh, wait. He’s with your folks in Cap Code, right?”

“Unless you meant your son, yes. All frisky and hydrated.” Which is more than can be said for Peter, so Elizabeth dips a cloth into their own cooler.

“Sorry, hon. It’s been a hot day’s night - in all respects but one.”

“Trail still cold?”

“Trail Captain Scott level of cold.” 

(He and the team are chasing an evasive fence who might or might not have the earliest French flag in his posession. It doesn’t help that the earliest French flag was a mere rosette winged up by La Fayette in 1789: a flimsy thing really, because La Fayette wasn’t your typical high end fashionista. He made two of them on a spur, one for a very reluctant King of France to wear on his hat as a thumbs-up to his future beheading, and one for his BFF, Thomas Jefferson, then the US Ambassador. Jefferson’s rosette ended up at the French Consulate, where they dig it up and dust it off once a year for their mid-July shindig. This year was no exception; except, once the last guest had been shown off and the Consul asked his wife to unpin the darn thing for him, ma chérie, it was discovered that he’d been wearing a _paper_ rosette - later traced back to a Les Miserables open air performance. Where it had been handed in hundreds to the audience every night, in the interval before the Barricade act, effectively blocking the investigation.

The Consul had not been amused, and Peter had been roped in to find a two-inch roundel of discoloured tricolor fabric in New York City, preferably before November 11th.)

“But enough about trail. You?”

“Oh - the usual.” The cloth makes little butterfly moves over Peter’s brow as Elizabeth selects her next words. “I’m planning a wedding.”

Her husband smiles under the sweat. “Should I start worrying?”

“You doofus. No, you do enough of that at work. And it’s - well, it’s - you know, most weddings I’ve planned so far were pretty same old. This one is… different new.”

“Oh?”

“Hm-mm.” Laying the cloth down, Elizabeth pats the refreshed brow. The frown line that has meandered there ever since July 14th stands its ground, but less visibly. “For one thing, the bride won’t give me her name. First name. Says she’s done fine without one so far.”

“That can’t be very good for paperwork.”

Elizabeth lets the paperwork issue slide by. “And then, _I_ managed to botch the groom’s name ten minutes in.”

“Oh, he a foreign guy? I remember, back in Quantico, we had that Belgian instructor - ”.

“He’s an Alec. But I started them on dates, and the bride kept saying “No, that’s when Eliot does zazen training” and “No, that’s when Eliot does ramen training.” So I thought, you know, I thought oh well, she must favor his middle name. And so I turned to the groom - lovely guy, all twinkle under the hoodie - and said, “Well, Eliot, will you name the day?”, and then the booth curtain growled and they both said “Oh, _that_ ’s Eliot”.”

Peter’s face looks more baffled than a FBI-minted face has any call to be. 

“Their dog has learnt to cook ramen?”

“Apparently, their watchdog has. What can I say. They’re unusual people.”

* * *

The thing is, Parker and Hardison are both lovely. Hardison is the very model of a model client - suave, accommodating, with a charisma he keeps on the back burner until he sees a thing he wants, which is when he cranks it up to white heat and won’t take no unless it’s Parker’s answer. Parker is the opposite. She could outstare Chtullu; talks curt; acts like a dove on acid until Elizabeth is down to her last morsel of patience, and then says something that twangs El’s heart right in that new motherly chord of hers

“Date first, then get the word out -”

“Already done,” Hardison says lightly, then, post-growl, “for my avatar. Gobbrain the Indomitable is affianced as of yesterday. Three hundred likes, man!”

“That’s... great, Alec. Not three hundred actual guests, though?”

Hardison reassures her that no, they’re looking at a very simple, very private ceremony. Which he will record and set on YouTube for the benefit of Gobbrain’s retinue, but only after he’s blurred their faces, changed their voices and morphed the setting to a torch-lit Gothic cave, as you do. More to the point, he has informed his Nana, his stepsiblings, two people called Nate and Sophie, and a couple of trustworthy Orcs. 

“What about you, Parker?”

Parker stares at Elizabeth until El blinks obligingly, but mistakenly: as it turns out, Parker was merely weighing her guest options. “No one,” she says in the end. 

“Oh come on, Parker.” They’re meeting in Central Park this time, with Eliot hovering over their bench, arms crossed, eyes narrowed at every duck trespassing in his vision field. “For one, there’s Archie.”

“No!” Parker swivels on her end of the bench and tosses one long leg up and over the back, levering herself up so she can meet him eye to eye. “If Archie comes, he’ll insist on giving me away. I won't be given away. Not again."

El opens her mouth, heart twanging. But Eliot is already there, his face suddenly made tender as he touches her blond hair and holds her forlorn gaze. “Nobody’s giving you away, Parker. You’re the boss. Bosses are untradable.”

“Listen to him, baby. We’re gonna make our entrance together - glide down the aisle hand in hand, uh?”

Parker’s eyes light up instantly. “How high is the aisle?”

* * *

“Well, there’s always the Empire State Building,” Sara says on the phone, her voice far away and wistful. When Sara calls, her voice always starts bright and chipper, until it turns around in the grip of the talk like a swimmer caught between contrary tides, and grows veiled. El knows the reason why, and knows to swim along the turn.

“I remember, yes. But I don’t think they’d take kindly to the bride bungee-jumping down the façade.”

Sara laughs, some of the brightness back. “Seriously?”

“All too seriously. And she wants a chocolate fountain.”

“Jesus, El. I’m told you can sizzle a pork chop on the Manhattan curb these days!”

“Parker is impervious to heat. I think, in her wildest dreams, she’d arrange for a chocolate fountain the size of your Big Ben and rappel down its melting cocoa side to join her beau.” Elizabeth joins in the laugh. “Who wants a soda cascade, by the way.”

“That’s more -”

“A _luminous_ soda cascade. Orange, with green lasers. And the _Lord of the Rings_ soundtrack. And then they both cascade down twenty storeys.”

“Have you asked Mozzie for help? I’m sure he could -”

“Sadly, Mozzie’s incommunicado. He’s helping Peter interrogate the French expats and not lose his mind to the guttural R. You know my husband - couldn’t say béret if they put him on the rack.”

Sarah laughs again, far and delighted. “Remember that evening at June’s? When she had him sing _La Vie en Rose_ with her, and - wait! Wait! By Jove, I’ve got it!”

“Oh,” says Elizabeth. A jogger’s spouse, she is used to keeping track. “Do you think she’d agree? My clients aren’t exactly legit, but…” 

But even as she speaks, she knows what June will say. Part of cherishing the dead lies in rooting for the life they led, the aura of liveliness that surrounded them, day in day out, imperfect and vibrant. If anyone will help two very vibrant, slightly unhinged bad-guys-good-souls tie the knot (to the rigger’s belt), June will. After all, her Roman namesake was the saint patron of marriages.

* * *

Neal’s loft is still what it was on Elizabeth’s last visit, when she and Sara had to coach Peter into starring in a faux blue film with the latter. Granted, Neal’s absence has left a subtle imprint - the cologne-less air, the orphaned peg where his hat once dangled jauntily. But something of his warmth endures, for the loft still gives off a vibe of having been loved and lived in. She watches Hardison and June one-up each other in suavity, Hardison’s face relaxed and grinning. He catches her eye and nods his chin briefly. Good. Stone, meet your birds: no paperwork muddle, and the evening breeze gratis free.

Parker makes a beeline to the rooftop terrace, then back again. Behind her, Eliot is taking stock of the venue. Stonily. Two down, one to go, Elizabeth tells herself, even as Parker grins at June who beams back at her.

“It’s practically perfect! All it wants is a bit of rigging, and Bob’s your not-creepy uncle!”

“Knock yourself out, honey. But you’ll need a permit if you don’t want the NYPD nosing up here.”

"On it.” (The groom, waving jazz fingers over his iPhone.)

“So I thought we’d have the buffet here, inside,” El says, ticking off _date_ , _venue_ and _what happens at June’s stays at June’s_ on her mental list. “And the orange cascade outside, along with the chocolate ice sculpture.” 

“Because marriage is about not causing hyperthermia among the guests.” (The bride, mantra-like.) “Also meeting your Equal Half halfway on key decisions.”

“Beer decisions excepted.” (Eliot)

El tells June she can’t thank her enough, and is June really okay with all of this? Because El can still try and swap the orange cascade to tonic or the less stainy Gatorades, or even excuse June from hosting a party for her identity challenged customers. June, in turn, tells El not to be a silly, she’s already agreed to sing _Orange In the Sky_ to the groom’s violin, and providing sanctuary for bright young things with aliases galore is her thing. So that is that, and they’re being all loosey-goosey around the mimosas when June turns to the young things with “And what will you two be wearing?”

“Suit and tie,” Eliot answers with the first grin he’s evidenced so far, jerking his thumb at Hardison. Who glares at him. Eliot, his grin resplendent, adds “Think of your Nana. Did she raise her boy to go get married in a ratty hoodie? _Did_ she, now?”

“Go get - oh, you’re so lucky there are ladies present.”

“And look, honey, here’s a little dressing room, right behind the partition. So you can wear anything you like for the party and then change here, before you and your gorgeous husband take off - or down - in a blaze of glory.”

Parker nods, somewhat absently. Wherever her mind has pirouetted, it’s not on bodices and bouquets.

“I’ll help you pick a dress, if you like. It’s part of the job,” says Elizabeth. (It is. Except for her own wedding, when her mom had taken the upper sewing hand, same as whenever El was invited to a costume party, and gone full on meringue. Then a flustered El had developed a rash that made her look like a walking pavlova. “But my pavlova,” Peter had fondly reassured her, not helping.)

“Meet the Other halfway,” Parker recites once more, her eyes away. She smiles. “Suit and tie it is.”

“Baby, no, you don’t have to -”

“Even better!” And now her eyes are wide open and impossibly grey. She has never looked more waifish, which Elizabeth knows now is maximum cause for alarm. “I’ll wear my special _Special_ suit, and then Todd McSweeten can come and be my agent of honour. Let’s make it a FBI-themed party!”

“What?” Elizabeth squeaks. “No!”

* * *

It is long past six when she gets home, having convinced Parker to drop the themed wedding and embrace the shopping spree, and fetched a very sleepy Neal from daycare. She takes off her sandals; lets the soles of her feet savour the cool hardness of her kitchen tiles; cooes Neal into a biscuit, some applesauce and a cup of water before she carries him off to bed. From there it's a choice of six steps to the Master Bedroom or twenty-six to the kitchen and her own supper, and El is still wavering when a shadow drops from the attic trap door behind her and seals his palm to her yelp. 

His voice at her ear is rusty, but sort of familiar. It says, “Lady, I’ve never in my life hurt a barefoot woman. Just, don't shout.”

“Hmmmf!” El answers, feelingly.

The hand draws back an inch. “Yeah?”

“Eliot!” Anger dovetails into bafflement, with raw territorial outrage in hot pursuit. “How did you get here? How did you know where to find me?” It was Mozzie’s idea that particulars should be kept from all parties involved; a protocol that must have included Elizabeth’s name and address. 

“Face recognition,” Eliot says, his face still stormy. “My boy Hardison got yours on my cue, the moment you did that little outburst. You have a high-profile job, Mrs. Peter Burke.”

Bugger. What was she thinking of, agreeing to Mozzie’s little pick-me-up when it involved an Eliot? She should have stuck to bored. She should have told Peter. She should have realized that this man, now she is facing him at close quarters, looks the spitting image of Franz Marc’s [ _Tiger_ ](https://www.franzmarc.org/Tiger.jsp). What’s the good of an A-plus art education if it won’t keep you safe from your best friend’s best friend’s best friend?

“Look,” she tells the tiger, shuffling her bare feet in a way she hopes makes her look docile, but is really a maneuver to get between him and her child’s open door. “First, it’s Elizabeth Burke. Next, I don’t know exactly what Mozzie told you -”

“He said you were good people!”

“He said the same about you!”

“He never said you were FBI-related good people!”

“Well, _I_ never said a word to Peter about this!”

“How can I trust you?” Eliot drops his arm, but carries on in what Elizabeth's ear is forced to admit is a tremulous husk. “These two - I’d do anything to keep them safe. And good, and happy. Do you have any idea what a commitment like this is? What it feels like, gettin’ up in the morning and tellin’ yourself, here’s the coffee she’s making, charcoal filters like I taught her, and there’s his notion of eggs which I’ll still eat, gummy or not, because they’re Hardison eggs. And all through the day my mind’ll be on the job, no two things ‘bout that, but it’ll be on them first who make it a good job. My people. My kin. Who make it so I never think twice of gettin’ up, long as the day I get through makes _their_ day. Do you get me, lady? Do you get what I’m talkin’ about?”

Which is when Elizabeth bursts into tears.

(In fairness to her, it's been a long day and champagne always makes her emotional.)

Against burning cheeks and the wet mist hanging on her eyelashes, she sees Eliot’s face changing. The perma-scowl drops into bafflement - into baffled horror - into the first (and, truth be told, hilarious) intimation of panic. Elizabeth notes the change between two hiccups. Her tears are still genuine as she takes the neck kerchief he offers wordlessly and dabs at her eyes, but she puts a smidgen more abandon into them. Makes her breath loud, her eyes large and plaintive. Summons a a sniffle and goes for the kill. Thankfully, Neal sleeps through the entire waterworks. 

Ten minutes later the tiger is seated next to her, looking rather sheepish, after he padded along downstairs. He has fetched her water. Made her breathe from the diaphragm. Actually asked when Peter would be back, which kick-started the Flood once more because Elizabeth cooked Peter’s eggs this very morning and now he is putting night shift over date night again, despite their Neal resolution, and CAN'T THE GODDAMN ROSETTE WAIT WHEN THEY HAVE THE EXACT SAME IN THE GODDAMN LOUVRE. 

“Look,” Eliot says after a few explanatory back and forths. “I’ll take your word about the not-a-word. And you’ve been doing a great job so far. I mean it. I’ve never seen Parker so excited - well, Parker is excited-wired, but I was bracing myself for a case of the heebie-jeebies when it came to the big Yes. And... nope. She’s taking it all in stride, social event and all. Proud of her. So perhaps you should pat yourself, too, and relax a bit. Don’t forget, the planning can be a joy in itself.”

“Dear god,” Elizabeth says. “You’ve really dug into my website.” 

She’s one _Interested?_ shy of bringing the tiger back to the game, but wisely abstains. Eliot shrugs.

“Had to. Don’t get the foie gras hype, though - too many additives. Sodium nitrite is the new Molotov."

"Not all caterers -"

"Don’t hold with canapés either. Elitist kiddy food. And mayonnaise? Is _dead_ to me.”

"I'm more of an aioli girl myself," Elizabeth admits. "But try selling the 1% food they can't pronounce."

"Golubtsy," Eliot says, impeccable.

"Too easy. Raddichio."

"Gyudon."

"Kedgeree."

"Crudités."

"I see your crudités," she warns him, "and I raise you the Elizabeth Burke pot-au-feu."

One beat.

Two beats...

"Kashke badimjan."

Elizabeth is not one to concede easily. Not on her turf. But she is also astute enough to see that she might not be the only one nursing a spot of territorial outrage.

"Fine. You're on buffet detail. But you'll report to me, and you'll have to liaise with Mozzie - he's seeing to the wine.”

“Then I’ll see to Mozzie. Might remind him I know four separate ways of killing a man with his own glasses.”

“Can we please never mention that in front of my husband,” Elizabeth says weakly. “But thank you.”

“No sweat. Feelin’ better? What’s left on your list?”

Quick check-through. They’re good on (alarmingly close) date, venue, guests, music, and, as of ten seconds ago, food and wine. Flowers, yes, but she usually waits until… “Parker’s dress. I’m meeting up with her tomorrow.”

“Hmmm.” Eliot extends his paw, the claws still pulled in, and Elizabeth, after a startled pause, puts her phone in it. He breezes past her lock code to add a name and number to her contacts. “In case of emergency,” he says, handing both phone and kerchief back. “Now blow your nose.”

* * *

Elizabeth Burke has her pride. Meaning that she holds her head high through all first four stores, before she gives in, claims a toilet break and makes the call. That’s ten minutes after Parker cast a long, pondering look at a rhinestone-studded atrocity and said, “Do you think this would go well with the Koh-i-Noor?”.

Sophie Devereaux meets them at the store cafeteria for lunch, and El feels some irrepressible urge to fall into her arms and cry “Sister!”. She doesn’t, because Peter’s job has acquainted her with the ways and wiles of grifters, but still lets herself bask in the tea and sympathy Sophie pours their way. Soon enough - that is, once the other woman has persuaded Parker into sober, streamlined options (“And I’ll lend you my pearls. Remember: something borrowed, something blue - well, yes, I suppose nail varnish qualifies”) - Elizabeth finds herself warming to the talk. Sophie chats about Paris, where she was recently, and Elizabeth - segueing from her current tale of woe - mentions the Louvre.

“Been there, done that, checked the exits. My inner leopard clings to its spots.” Sophie tickles Parker’s ear. “Especially with a wedding gift to consider.”

“A card is quite enough,” Parker tells her fondly. “So I can keep it long after and think of you every time I look at it. Just make sure the pin is 6666 - I don’t have Hardison’s head for numbers.”

“Anyway, I regret to say the Louvre is a no-no. The new head of security has it thoroughly covered. I -”

“Did you go for the Oval Portrait?”

“Of course. But he -”

“The Oral Oval Portrait?”

“No, Nate couldn’t find a ventriloquist’s dummy at Le Bon Marché. We -.”

“The Oolala Oral Oval Portrait, then?”

Sophie, predictably, lets that one pass. “We tried the secret passageway that even General de Gaulle never heard of. He was waiting at the other end. Laughing, the tease. Quite young, very dashing - curly dark hair, the bluest eyes, and I’ll eat his hat if he isn’t one of us, or used to be.”

“Wait,” Elizabeth cuts in, her head swirled with the hard, rapt unbelief which precedes hope. “ _His_ hat?” 

“Fedora. Very Sinatra, very _New York New York_. In fact, he only let us go scott free because we told him we were headed here. He’s pining for the Big Apple, I could tell.”

Parker, who stopped being interested once Sophie failed to put the con in recon, repeats “Cards. You can never go wrong with cards. Or cash. Let's go see more dresses?”

“In a second,” Elizabeth promises as her fingers, suddenly weak and slippery, search for her IDrive stash. Home to a picture of two men in tuxedos, arms around each other's shoulders, both dear to her heart. “In a second, sweetie.”

* * *

The storm for which every New Yorker from Queens to Manhattan has been praying breaks that very night. Peter makes it home two hours in, drenched to the bone. She takes him in her arms; takes in the soaked, dishevelled weight of him, and receives his contrite embrace. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “This case is a wild goose chase and I've let it ruin date night twice in a row. Hon, I’m so sorry.”

“All right,” she says because, with Peter, the downs usually end up as tender and as true as the ups. “But you’re not kissing your son good night as a merman. Go shower, and then you can help me make a centerpiece.” Their dining-table is already heaped with materials.

“You’re… making the centerpiece yourself?”

“I am. I want them to have the best, best-tailored, most unique wedding on God’s green Earth.”

“And it comes with playmobiles?”

“That’s elf playmobiles to you, sir.”

“And that thing you’re hanging the chocolates on would be...?”

“The White Tree of Gondor.”

Peter runs a hand through his soaked hair. “Okay, but why is Neal’s plush tiger ogling the chocolates?”

“Oh, that’s a nod to Eliot. He’s been a gent, really. Gave me all sorts of tips.”

“Planning tips?”

“You might call them that.” Elizabeth arranges the little tiger around the tree, one paw held protectively over the hanging chocolates. “One of them involves a pair of glasses.”

* * *

Eliot actually smiles at her when she enters, carrying her masterpiece wrapped in cellophane, pausing to savour the smells. Their last tasting involved sesame oil, cilantro and peanuts, and while she (regretfully) had him strike out the peanuts, he's found an even better surrogate. The lush tang in the air matches the bright gleam in June’s cutlery, in the glasses piled high on the terrace, in the lovely alabaster statue currently being dragged...

Wait. Rewind.

“El!” Alec Hardison, lovely guy, sidles up to her. He looks utterly dapper in a blue silk tie, his smile the gleam to end all gleams. “So good to see you.”

“Please,” El says, her knees on the verge of crumpling zone. “Please, please, please, please, Alec, tell me this is not Canova’s _Eros and Psyche_.”

“Shhh. It’s all good,” Alec says with his customary good cheer. “It’s my gift to Parker. We saw it together on a cultural bonding trip and I told her I’d get it for her, because I knew she’d call dibs on it - the real thing - if I didn’t. But this one is all me. Nice work, uh?”

“You… can… forge a Canova?”

“Age of the groom, baby!” Eliot calls above his apron.

“Comes with the territory,” Hardison parrs modestly, taking the centerpiece from her to lay it carefully on the table. His next words are graver. “Parker will know what’s not faux about it.”

And his words stay on with Elizabeth as the guests come up and the party comes live, a small but cheerful gathering with just the right touch of extemporizing. The terrace is cool and luminous, and so is Parker in a sheath of cream silk, reading her vows in a limpid voice. They’re absolutely to the point, as El knew they would be. Parker’s capacity to zone in one hundred per cent on the job at hand knows no exception, least of all when telling Hardison that she will hang about with him rain or hail, to their dying day. Hardison’s speech is a little more florid, because Hardison has quite the lexicon and is not afraid to use it, but no less eager. Parker beams happiness, and the old, very spruce gentleman who did lead her to where Mozzie is officiating gazes at her with pride.

As for Mozzie, his is the subdued expression he’s worn ever since he walked in, a prayer book under his arm, and walked into Elizabeth.

“I thought we might rehearse,” she told him, all sugar and spice.

“Oh, that would be taking the bloom off my Zen-Evangelist-Celtic-Mystic liturgy.”

“At least give me a hint? The very first words.”

“Oh, they’re very ecumenical. ‘Dearly beloved, we are gath -”

“Are you sure it shouldn’t be ‘Dearly departed’? Or even, ‘Dearly not so much departed as living _la belle vie_ with the French while my husband - who, by the way, is working his guts out for them - still mourns him every day'? ”

Mozzie’s next jumbled words of Pink Panthers, Little Suit, safety protocol, and Neal swearing him to secrecy while missing the living hell out of them made sense. In the end. But she still poked him on the forehead, right above the glasses, and told him to tell Peter this very week or she would.

Then she kissed his forehead. He had introduced her to this motley crew with their own Paris connection, and something - call it the square root of instinct - told Elizabeth that he might, in fact, have been aware of the connection.

They make it to the end of the liturgy with nobody in the audience questioning why the marriage officer never once named the happy couple. There is, after all, a nice young man right behind Parker, holding her bouquet like a sacred relic.

“You may kiss the bride,” Mozzie intones, and Hardison is dipping his face to Parker’s when the loft door slams open, and a voice well known to Elizabeth calls “Mozzie, what the hell? The team’s waiting for you in Rats’ Alley!”

“Oh, rats,” Mozzie says. He is opening his mouth for more when the nice young man shoves Parker’s bouquet into his arms, wheels around and stomps up to the terrace door right when Peter is crossing it. “FBI,” the young man says not so nicely, flashing a badge. “Sir, you are trespassing on private property and I’m going to ask you to leave.”

“Ex _cuse_ me?” Peter sputters.

“Excuse _me_!” yells Elizabeth, diving back to reach her own lawful spouse. She grabs Peter’s arm and, in the same breath, says “It’s okay, it’s my wedding. Event. Peter, as I love, honour and cherish you, don’t bust my event.”

“But the stakeout,” Peter objects, looking around himself. Elizabeth can already see the nostalgia flooding into his face. She clutches his arm tighter.

“This once - just this once. Work with me, hon. Please.” And to McSweeten, “That’s my husband Peter. I’m definitely vouching for him, Agent.”

“Yes, ma’am,” McSweeten says. Then, in near-avuncular tones: “Better give warning next time, sir. The FBI doesn’t look too kindly on wedding crashers.”

“You don’t say,” Peter says, tight-jawed.

Pat comes Eliot, who up to now has been standing behind Alec, close enough to breathe down his buddy's neck. Elizabeth's first instinct is to step right between. But Eliot is not rolling up his sleeves: Eliot is holding a cup of champagne out to Peter. And Peter, Elizabeth's husband of fourten years, is... loosening the jaw. Hanging it, even. Is saying, in a voice clogged with wonder, "Roy Chappell?!".

Elizabeth knows that tone. She doesn’t hear it often and when she does, it usually means one of three things: Neal (their Neal) has learnt a new word - they (she and Peter) have spent ten hours in bed - or Peter has met one of his sports idols. In context, has to be the last one. She waits until their first click of glasses and turns back to where Hardison and Parker are waiting, Parker dipped backwards over Alec’s strong arm until her torso is perpendicular with the floor. She doesn’t look the worse for it.

“Event now un-upset,” Elizabeth calls over to them. “Resume!”

  
  


* * *

Husband and Culinary Dear Enemy are still talking sports when Hardison asks her for a dance. The party has reached that golden age when the guests have been wined, dined, soda-ed and mellowed with excellent jazz, and nothing could possibly mar the hour. Hardison’s Nana ambles past them regally in Archie’s arms; Sophie and June have taken upon themselves to circulate the Orcs (two youngsters sporting public school good manners and crewcuts) around the terrace floor. The air is cool; unchafed, even by the sotto voce bickering between Mozzie and Sophie’s husband (“Bourbon is to wine what Dan Brown is to Marcel Proust!”). 

“Best night ever,” says Hardison. “Parker would tell you the same if she wasn’t checking the rigging. Love the blue nails, by the way."

"Her idea," Elizabeth says truthfully. She suspects it's Tardis blue. Parker may still need the occasional mantra, but she knows her man all right.

"She and I, we're very grateful to you. And what my Nana taught me, long before I went and got myself some extra IT training, was that actions trump words. So we hope you'll kindly accept this from the two of us - and Eliot."

Still dancing, he fishes a small padded envelop out of his breast pocket.

“Alec, no. Your cheque more than covered the costs, and the rest - the rest is my pleasure. I can't tell you how meeting you, all of you, changed my life - to say nothing of Peter's."

“Yeah, this is for Peter too. Though you mayyyybe want to wait until you’re home before you open it.”

“What is it?” Elizabeth asks, slipping the envelop into her evening bag.

“Small nothing. Really. Which we retrieved from the French Consul’s... unofficial bank account."

"Oh!"

"There’s a reason why the investigation was swamped from the start, and your husband suspects it. But we thought we'd cut through the red tape.” Hardison winks at her. “We too know when to take a job to help a friend out.”

She is speechless. But already he is bowing to her (lovely guy) and walking away, and Peter is commanding the empty space. The sunset floods the terrace. Most of the guests have reconvened by its edge for their send-off, but June’s record still wooes the air, and El glides into Peter’s steps with long-practiced ease.

“Funny,” Peter says. “Me and you, here and dancing. How right it feels. Here I thought I could never revisit…”

“I know, sweetheart."

“Remember when he got Mozzie to marry us again?”

“Hm-mm. You still owe me a second honeymoon.”

“Oh I do, Mrs. Burke, do I?”

“Definitely,” Elizabeth says. “In fact, the moment you box this case, I’m packing ours.”

“Anywhere you like. Well, anywhere but Paris. Don’t think I'll ever want to hear another word of French if I live to be a hundred.”

“Never say never,” she says, and puts her cheek to his while he sways them into the breeze.


End file.
